Far-out fun Barry Weintraub is a pop-cult pastiche BY BILL RODRIGUEZ
	Barry Weintraub: Intergalactic Explorer Written and directed by Lenny Schwartz from a story by Anthony Amaral III, Gianni Petterutti and Lenny Schwartz. With Anthony Amaral III, Jennifer Drummond, James Kelly, Daniel Martin, Brittany Martin, and Melissa Stanziale. Presented by Daydream Theatre Company at the Bell Street Chapel, 5 Bell St., Providence, through November 21.

Daydream Theatre Company and their ringmaster, Lenny Schwartz, just wanna have fun. Barry Weintraub: Intergalactic Explorer, their latest entertaining offering, may overstay its welcome for some. But if you have 2 1/2 hours to spare, you just may find it a hoot and a half instead of just a hoot.

It’s being staged in Bell Street Chapel rather than a barn, but you get the idea. Imagination is the vehicle, gung-ho enthusiasm is the fuel, and fun is the cargo, as the alter ego of writer-director Schwartz is propelled through an outlandish adventure in order to save not just the Earth but the universe.

Hold on. Don’t go away. There’s more here than self-indulgence and horsing around: there is actual talent to be discerned. Embryonic but talent nonetheless, here and there. More than a dozen actors, largely drawn from Rhode Island College, strut their stuff, and the central characters are delightful to watch.

Even the prologue scene, showing us Barry back in junior high, is a treat rather than just tacked on. The Johnston High School drama club students — who call themselves J-Jack and the Twins — have a winning naturalness that is most vital skill of good actors.

In style and larky substance, Barry Weintraub, played with whimsy and energy by Anthony Amaral III, appears to be channeling the spirit of Pee-wee Herman, sans smut convictions. He’s a reluctant nerd who shuffles along hunched over, to make himself a smaller target, and is constantly pushing his glasses back on his nose. But at the same time, like Pee-wee he has a reserve of good-natured charm and untapped smarts that we can detect even if he doesn’t. His super-supportive girlfriend Shelly, whom Jennifer Drummond gives an equally nasal amiability, says that they are a great match since they are both losers. But we don’t believe for a minute that these perky kids will be losing for long.

Things get fun fast. With a high collar on his gown like Ming the Magnificent from the old Flash Gordon films, comes an intergalactic traveler named Voice. James Kelly gets thoroughly into the portentous vocal potential, beefing up the portrayal with complex choreographed gestures that combine hip-hop with Victorian stage affectedness. Barry must come with him to save the universe, he announces. (Our hero didn’t catch on from the tattoo on his shin, having read it backwards as "E-N-O E-H-T.")

The Voice’s voice meets its match in the nefarious Mr. Whisper, whom Daniel Martin makes sure does no such thing, booming and bellowing evilly at every opportunity. We first see him with his Henchman (Brittany Martin), cackling in a frame that looks like a puppet stage and that reminds us of such schlocky-but-great-fun tales as the aforementioned. It is he whom Barry must defeat, or all of existence will be snuffed out and remade as Mr. Whisper wishes. Which would not be much fun for the non-psychotic.

Never mind the plot, which involves poor Barry being transported with Voice to the wrong planet, where Queen Eudora (Melissa Stanziale) insists he sign on as king; a visit to the afterlife, where an angel (Nikki-Rae Gibson) chirpily asks everyone whether they’d like a drink or appetizer before they walk toward the light; as well as Barry fighting to the death a time or two. Throw in some Harry Potter background (his parents were killed when he was a baby) plus the revelation that he and Mr. Whisper share a Manichean connection that Luke Skywalker would appreciate, and you have a rollicking action-packed pop-cult pastiche, even if its strands do unravel toward the end.

None of this would be all that entertaining if Schwartz didn’t have a fertile and wacky imagination plus a knack for writing funny, tension-filled interplay. He’s as interested in his characters as they themselves are, if you know what I mean, so the actors have plenty of conflict, internal and external, to grapple with. Not for nothin’ that the first of the Star Wars sagas involved us the most, back when Lucas let character trump plot. What this playwright needs to learn next is to shape and trim his work. Trinity Rep cuts scenes from Shakespeare, for pity’s sake, to keep us groundlings from getting restless.

Last winter, Daydream Theatre Company staged Memoirs of a Video Store Madman, based on Schwartz’s workaday traumas. They have produced plays by other writers as well, such as Mike Messier and John Lincoln. In the spring, another play plumbing Schwartz’s crazed consciousness will be offered. If he manages to cast it as well as this time around, I for one will be looking forward to grinning up from the audience.